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Sunday, July 20, 2014

Until yesterday, I’d never heard of Matt Fishel. I’m glad I did, because he’s the sort of independently-minded artist I admire, the kind who stay true to their artistic vision.

Matt is a gay artist who refused to make compromises to be “commercial”. According to Huffington Post, where I first hear about Matt, he was told he “had to stop writing songs about men” because “apparently being gay wasn't ‘radio-friendly.’"

Matt’s response, the video at the bottom of this post, is "Radio-Friendly Pop Song", a thoroughly catchy pop song like any that one might hear on, you know, the radio. I really like its positive “don’t take no bullshit” message.

The video at the top of this post is his newest single, a remake of CeCe Peniston’s “Finally”. I like all the positive imagery in the video as well as his version of the song. I placed it first because it's his newest single. Of course.

I like pop music. I like openly gay pop artists. I especially like openly gay pop artists who don’t compromise by changing pronouns. And yet I also tend to think how much difference such things would have made to me when I was a teenager. I hope having such artists with integrity it makes a difference to teens now.

But it’s pop music, after all, and it’s meant to be fun. Sometimes, that really is enough, but the fact that there are so many openly gay artists performing their songs honestly is really, really good to see. Finally.